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Searching for US Presidents’ policy on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Weakness has always been the timing and hypocrisy in policy. Today look at Israel, support by France, and the Islam bomb developed by Pakistan under auspiciën of the CIA. Recently, Egypt has terminated its membership as NPT signatory.
No president can match the courage of John F. Kennedy in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile crisis, to give this great speech at the American University. A speech written by Ted Sorensen without input from institutons like the Pentagon, CIA and State department. The negotiations with the Soviet Union lasted 12 days before concensus was reached. The world could have been a better place, Tikun Olam. The limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was ratified and signed by JFK on Oct. 7, 1963.
JFK Commencement Address at American University, June 10, 1963 – Part 1 and Part 2.
Below the fold: “when force speaks, the laws are silent” >>
War: Metaphor into Reality by Peter Weiss on Sept. 19, 2001
Inter arma silent leges. When force speaks, the laws are silent. And the more brutal the force, the more complete the silence of law. This is what most people believe, and after the events of September 11 it is hard to blame them. But law, particularly the law of war and peace, does not march solely to the drumbeat of daily life. If it cannot keep pace with extraordinary events in the worst of times, it loses its capacity to govern, to provide the order that is associated with law. Lawyers must therefore, at times, swim against the tide of public opinion and remind an outraged populace that even “a war to rid the world of evil” is subject to the laws of war, both ius ad bellum, which governs the right to go to war, and ius in bello, which governs the conduct of war.
The first question, then, is, what is war? According to Lassa Oppenheim, one of the giants of international law, “War is a contention between two or more States through their armed forces, for the purpose of overpowering each other, and imposing such conditions of peace as the victor pleases”. A terrorist attack, no matter how heinous, committed by non-state actors, is not a casus belli, an “act of war”, except in a metaphorical sense. It therefore cannot justify a state resorting to war against another state in response to the attack, unless the other state’s responsibility for the attack has been unambiguously established.
But, as is clear from the statements of the President and other high officials, no such responsibility has been proved, except again in a metaphorical sense. They speak of making war against countries that “support”, “tolerate” or “harbor” terrorists. Saudi Arabia refuses to this day to extradite the eleven men indicted in the 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers, in which 19 US airmen were killed and 370 injured. Does this mean that Saudi Arabia is supporting terrorists and that we are or will be at war with Saudi Arabia? A recent study by the Congressional Research Service alleges that Osama Bin Laden’s organization has bases or tentacles in 37 countries. Are we, or will we be, at war with all of them?
Nor is it possible to declare war against an unidentified enemy, which is essentially what the President and the Congress have done in the aftermath of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Yet, both psychologically and legally, the use of war terminology has grave consequences. Psychologically, as shown by the WAR banner headlines in the days following September 11, it creates a mood of “follow the leader, wherever he may lead” and makes bloodthirsty monsters out of normally decent citizens. As one correspondent said in the Letters column of the New York Times on September 18, “It is not enough to wipe out Afghanistan … I will be satisfied with nothing short of a sweeping and devastating assault on all those countries that train, finance and protect those whose stated goal is the slaughter of Americans.”
Legally, a state of war triggers all sorts of undesirable consequences. At the level of international law, the proclamation of a state of emergency, which is normally less than a state of war, allows a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, such as the United States, to “derogate” from its obligations under the Covenant in respect of several basic human rights, including freedom from forced labor, the right to bring habeas corpus proceedings, freedom of movement, equality before the law and freedom from arbitrary arrest.
A de facto, or functionally equivalent, declaration of war, followed by acts of war, naturally triggers the right of self-defense by any state affected. The Taliban has already prepared the Afghan people to fight a holy war against the United States, once the US makes good on its promise to “end” that state. Every other state against which military action is taken by the global antiterrorist coalition in the making will consider itself entitled to respond with armed force against any member of the coalition. The US, with its farflung global outposts, military and otherwise, and its long list of potential target states, is particularly vulnerable in this respect. Thus, conducting the impending – and necessary – antiterrorist operation under the banner of war legitimates the cycle of violence, which it is sure to spark.
Proceeding under a flag of war will of course also have, indeed has already had, grave consequences in terms of domestic constitutional law. While President Bush has not formally invoked the War Powers Act – Presidents hardly ever do – Congress has made it unnecessary for him to do so and has approved in advance the uncharted voyage on which he and the armed forces are about to embark.
[Read on …]
Listening to the conciliatory words by JFK towards the communists and people of the Soviet Union, the world has drifted apart more than we realize in our daily, busy world. Such a shame, even Obama cannot provide change. See the diplomatic rhetoric by Susan Rice at the UN Security Council. Such a bloody shame.
